Be prepared for a below average monsoon this year

Start saving water as El Nino is shadowing over the prospect of good rains, be prepared for a below normal rainfall, warn met experts; the El Nino effect can be the root cause for less rainfall

Pune: You are likely to face water crisis till next year's monsoon if you do not start saving water from today. Predicting the possibility of El Nino effect, the South Asian Climate Outlook Forum has given a forecast of below normal rainfall in South Asia for the period of June to September. Of the total area of south Asia where below normal rain has been predicted, most part is of India.The fifth session of South Asian Climate Outlook Forum (SASCOF) is being conducted at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in which experts from South Asian countries are participating. On Wednesday, SASCOF gave consensus outlook for the 2014 southwest monsoon rainfall for June till September. The experts members of the forum have predicted that there will be below normal rainfall over broad areas of western, central and southwestern parts of South Asia and some areas in northeastern region. Considering the geographical area of the South Asia, apart from some parts of Northeast India, parts of Kashmir and east India, there is below normal rainfall predicted in rest of the country.D S Pai, director of Long Range Forecast Division of India Meteorological Department said, "The expert members of SASCOF have consensus over strong possibility of evolution of El Nino event during the monsoon with a potential for adverse impact."However, Pai also pointed out that apart from El Nino, other regional and global factors can also affect the monsoon rainfall pattern in the region."Since 1951, we have observed El Nino phenomena 14 times out of which only eight times there was deficit rainfall which states that there are other factors also responsible for the performance of the monsoon," Pai added.The El Nino phenomena starts from the month of March and April and it gets warmer and reaches to its peak around December and then it starts weakening. The phenomena usually lasts for a year.